Last week I went to an appointment for my nevergettingbetter sports injury. I had recently returned to London after attending a funeral back in America, and to be honest I was still gathering my head after a month of bewildering tumult. Sarah, my solid gold physiotherapist, welcomed me in and we quickly recapped the state of American politics and all that has happened over the course of this year.  Soon we reached a pause that left me feeling as though there was nothing good to look forward to, but then Sarah’s eyes lit up. She let me in on her office’s brand new coping strategy for all that seemed negative about the year: aggressive Christmas.

Aggressive Christmas? Like, a mixture of raw, unbridled energy crossed with yuletide cheer? I kind of liked the idea of directing my anger emotion in such a way.

So back in late September I was aghast to discover Sainsbury already hawking those festively chalky mince pies (our U.S. equivalent would be Stop & Shop putting out egg nog or Cap’n Crunch Christmas Crunch before Halloween). Even if your country doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, it just seemed far too early to be acknowledging the approaching Festivus. But that was before early November stole the keys to 2016 and effectively ended the entire year with the kind of bang that none of us were exactly expecting. At least not me. But I digress.

It only took a few seconds of speaking with Sarah to realize that yes, the year is not exactly living up to specs and that yes, I do want that Hallmark movie feeling to wash over everything in some red and green dyed tackorama. Aggressive Christmas, here we come. I need me some happy.

Today I was called to my apartment on short notice (and away from my office’s Thanksgiving celebration!) to let the boiler maintenance guy in to do some work. While transiting from the metro to my flat, I cruised by a cherrypicker steadying a big tall evergreen in front of one of my favorite bakeries. Before that moment, I had started to doubt the worth in pulling out my household holiday decorations. I travel a ton, and I won’t even be here for for the holidays– but, in watching that Clark Griswold tree go into position, I reaffirmed my commitment and decided that I must do Christmas.

So while the maintenance guy worked away in my kitchen, I teetered on the top of a step ladder and pulled down my holiday decorations from the closet. Not only do I have a big plastic bin of random Christmas mementos, but I also have exactly one fake tree that, each year, I do a crappy job of stuffing back into its tattered box come January. I have a hard time giving it lots of TLC since I got it for 80% off at the Job Lot in a post-Christmas sale several years ago. Still, I love my tree. And I also love getting a deal at the Job Lot.

Before I started to set items out on my table for sorting, the first thing I did was fire up my copy of Vince Guaraldi’s most important contribution to humankind: the score to A Charlie Brown Christmas. For an American with any leaning toward Christianity, this animated contribution might date back to 1965, but it is truly magic.

With ‘Linus and Lucy’ playing, it wasn’t long before I was throwing things up reverse-Grinch style and getting lost in music that took me back to being a kid wrapped up in a sleeper (effectively a snowsuit masquerading as pajamas) while perched on 1970s-patterned furniture sitting next to a fireplace doing double duty as nature’s tranquilizer for five rowdy Hallinan children. Good times with no real world worries.

I did a half-assed job of unbending my fake tree branches as I commenced with frosting the wire and plastic gnarled construction with ornaments. Before I knew it, I had unwrapped every item from its tissue paper and had moved on to decking other halls.

As I sifted through my box of memories, I found that most of the decorations are international, and the bulk represent slashes of  memories from time spent in and around Africa. I’ve got a beaded reindeer from Zimbabwe, recycled tin can Père Noël and angels that are the best things ever, a nativity set that I bought from a Nigerien Touareg, a stocking from a women’s co-op in Rwanda…all kinds of stuff. It’s not African, but I even have some Target stocking holders circa 2000 and a beautiful handmade stocking from my ex-mother-in-law!  Hey, it’s Christmas. You have to let it all hang out because at the end of the day, there is beauty in everything. Aggressive Christmas.

When I moved into my place almost a year ago, my selfless brother flew over to help me with the inherently stressful transition. I wrote about it here, but I’ll summarize by saying that while I was beachcombing for organization in my new bedroom, he not only assembled all of my furniture, but he also put up all of my Christmas decorations in the living room. He’s the best brother I could have ever asked for,  and now I could hear his voice in my head telling me to stop being lazy and put my crap up for the season. Ho ho ho.

I had just about finished my Guaraldi album by the time Christmas had completely thrown up in my flat. Hooray! The living room was no longer monopolized by an austere yoga mat and stability ball, so it wasn’t actually hard to feel better about the looks of 2016 (which is not to speak of the Christmas cheer I kept nipping from my minibar).  The maintenance guy left too after having me sign some form that for all I knew gave away the net income of my monthly paycheck. It didn’t matter. Christmastime is here and there is nothing left for me to do now but gather with friends starting at Thanksgiving and see the feeling through until January when all of this cheer comes back down again.

Okay so maybe 2016 wasn’t all bad, but I’d be lying if I said that I felt exactly the same way around this time last November. But still, we will all carry on and unwrap 2017 whether we want to or not. For me at least, I will most definitely be looking forward to the New Year. And not because I think that a certain Friday in January is going to be tremendous, but rather because that’s the next time I’ll get to go home and spend time with my family. I’ve got two siblings who are first responders, so the holidays are a tough time for them to get off. Here’s to wrapping up 2016 with more positivity and getting on with some aggressive celebrating in 2017.